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MySpace imagined a new way to protect users from phishing. What seemed to be a splash page showing up between links on MySpace and the external pointed sites, was actually a test for a new feature that advices users not to give their passwords.
The site pointed through the links, although not MySpace, is a safe one and doesn’t require personal details for getting in.
Through
a warning page, after clicking a link to a non-MySpace website, the
user is informed that the site is not unsafe but is just another way of
trying to reduce phishing.
All that this message is doing is
telling that you will access another website, not MySpace, in order not
to be tempted to give your password. The most popular sites, for
instance RockYou, Slide, YouTube, are whitelisted and that warning page
doesn’t appear in their case. This list will be progressively
completed.
The things are looking good: after only 10 minutes
of testing, the number of phishing reports was decreased. When clicking
on external links that have not yet been whitelisted by MySpace, the
users will encounter another message warning them again not to give the
password.
The phishing problems from MySpace required these
measurements. Many users had difficulties when trying one of the tens
of thousands of MySpace sites that, for instance, improve your profile.
They had their accounts compromised and their profiles were attacked
with spams.
Even if MySpace have whitelisted the top few hundred
most-linked sites based on their internal data and are continuing, it
is still possible for you to meet splash page before accessing an
external link. Remember that this is for your security and will
probably save you for a lot of trouble.
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